COUNTY cricket returned to Southport with a flourish yesterday, as Lancashire yet again showed their Championship credentials with an outstanding bowling performance against Nottinghamshire.
The Red Rose county’s highest home crowd of the season packed into a sun-drenched Trafalgar Road, with the 2,606 spectators rewarded with a brilliant first session of cricket, which left the champions Nottinghamshire’s top order in tatters.
Leading the plaudits for Lancashire was fast bowler Kyle Hogg, whose opening spell accounted for four of the visitor’s top six batsman, in a devastating period when four wickets fell in just nine balls. But Notts recovered well with the ball, to leave a fascinating match firmly in the balance.
After a period of relative calm at the start of the innings, Hogg removed both openers caught behind, with Australian Riki Wessels also falling, trapped lbw by Liverpool-born Tom Smith, without scoring.
Two more ducks followed, as Hogg was rewarded for bowling a wonderfully consistent line and length with the wickets of Adam Voges lbw and former Lancashire player Steven Mullaney, who left his bat hanging, only to see the ball ricochet into the stumps.
The talk before the game had been about what a spinner’s paradise the picturesque ground would be, and Nottinghamshire’s decision to bat first seemed a sensible one, but with captain Chris Read walking out to bat with the score 27 for five, it looked doubtful whether slow bowling would even be required.
Thankfully Lancashire’s decision to pick an extra spinner, with Ormskirk Cricket Club’s Simon Kerrigan taking the place of Sajid Mahmood, was justified when Gary Keedy tempted the big hitting Samit Patel into a daft shot which saw him sky the ball to Smith at mid off.
At 69 for seven and with the local crowd buoyed by the news that Lancashire will be playing their final Championship home game at Liverpool Cricket Club, the prospects looked bleak for Notts, which made their post-lunch comeback all the more unlikely.
First New Zealander Andre Adams and Graeme White got stuck in, withWhite smashing one ball off Keedy back over his head and into the guttering of one of the adjacent houses, as the pair put on 65 for the eighth wicket.
After Adams fell to Kerrigan and White became Hogg’s fifth victim, Darren Pattinson and Luke Fletcher took up the challenge, as they batted sensibly and powerfully to take Nottinghamshire to an improbable 203 all out, with a tenth wicket partnership of 58.
With the crowd enjoying an ice cream or two during an extended tea break, Lancashire came out in a similarly serene mood and proceeded to progress to 50 and beyond with out any major scares for openers Paul Horton and Stephen Moore, but as had been the pattern of a gripping day, things soon changed with the introduction of Adams, who accounted for Moore, Horton and Mark Chilton, as three wickets fell for one run.
As the shadows lengthened on a beautiful day, Pattinson struck to bowl Karl Brown for one and leave Keedy clinging on as night watchman with Lancashire 86 for four at the close.
